U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,820,386 issued Nov. 23, 2004 to Kappeli and 3,657,852 issued Apr. 25, 1972 to Worthington review the prior art on floor tiles having locking mechanisms consisting of tongues that interlock with pockets underneath the visible surface portion. They both teach forming a continuous floor covering that is not adherent to the substrate floor. Their objective of providing a floating floor covering that will not be disrupted by movement of the underlying floor is achieved. Fitting the pockets over the closely fitting tongues during installation is difficult, because the process is obscured by the overlying visible portion. This greatly increases the installation problems and costs. U.S. Pat. No. 5,791,114 issued Aug. 11, 1998 to Mandel teaches the tongue and pocket interlocking method of forming a floor covering. It makes the interlocking mechanism visible by having the tongues and pockets extend all the way through the tile, including the top portion. However, because the joints are visible, they must be very tight. This makes the installation process difficult, because it takes excessive time and effort to fit each tongue into its corresponding pocket.